the sky leads home

One glo­ri­ous after­noon in New Jer­sey, one evening at Heathrow, one night flight, one lug­gage-heavy taxi-ride lat­er, and we’re back home, safe in London.

Dare I say it, we’re also unpacked, set­tled in, Avery’s ENTIRE clos­et emp­tied because pre­cise­ly NOTH­ING fits her after this Year of Intense Growth Out­ward and Upward. I sent her upstairs with her suit­case to “unpack,” only imme­di­ate­ly to hear a pathet­ic wail, “But my clos­et is already full, and NOTH­ING fits me!” So upstairs for the sad task of tak­ing away many beloved gar­ments: the plaid Burber­ry wrap-around skirt her besot­ted father bought for her at Sel­f­ridges sev­er­al Christ­mases ago, the gor­geous Rachel Riley white Capri pants that served for just a few sea­sons, the t‑shirt I adored that said, “YOU WISH…” on the front and “You could ride like a girl” on the back, with a dar­ling pony illus­tra­tion. Child­hood in cot­ton knit.

Yes­ter­day saw us with our irre­place­able friends in New Jer­sey, mim­ic­k­ing for an after­noon the per­fect Fourth of July near­ly two months ago, now. Livia and I set the table out on the screened porch (my dream is to have such a lux­u­ry, the out­doors with­out bugs), and we tucked into gaz­pa­cho, and sand­wich­es of ham, turkey, pumper­nick­el bread, let­tuce and home­made Russ­ian dress­ing. Most impor­tant, we final­ly got the per­fect pho­to­graph of Avery with Jan­ice. This pho­to makes me cry every time I see it. Avery’s life­time, our entire mar­ried life, spent in friend­ship with this won­der­ful woman! Every­thing, prac­ti­cal­ly, that I know about hostess­ing, about being hos­pitable, wel­com­ing, has come to me from this lady.

How she and Avery adore each oth­er, being extra grand­moth­er and extra grand­child to one anoth­er. “Dar­ling girl, tell me about the hors­es you have been rid­ing this sum­mer, and how is school?” In her turn, Livia (no fan of small chil­dren, nor am I in gen­er­al) casu­al­ly brings out a stack of books. “Take a look at this one, where Sher­lock Holmes is only ONE of the impor­tant char­ac­ters, and anoth­er is a 15-year-old girl,” and Avery was smit­ten at once. Avery is chary with her affec­tions, giv­ing her love to a small num­ber of peo­ple she has learned to trust. And even though so much of their rela­tion­ship has been spent apart, there is a deep well of love among these three ladies, sep­a­rat­ed by per­haps 75 years in age (one does not ask!) that makes me very, very happy.

Livia went AWOL for the after­noon from her job, and we sim­ply sat around and TALKED. The fan in the white kitchen whirred, the leaflets and brochures from their recent cruise came out, in a bla­tant attempt to sell us on accom­pa­ny­ing them next year. We ate cook­ies, drank cof­fee, talked about our sum­mer, the dif­fer­ences between the Eng­lish and Amer­i­can char­ac­ters. A quick glimpse of the fer­al cat and her three kit­tens that Livia and Jan­ice have been feed­ing on their back porch… Avery crouch­ing, putting out her hand, sure she can “whis­per” them into socia­bil­i­ty. Giv­en more than a few hours, I’m sure she could. Then all too soon it was time to leave. Hugs all round, exhor­ta­tions to stay in touch, to make plans at Christ­mas­time. “Dar­ling Oth­er Moth­er,” I say, hug­ging her as close­ly as I can, believ­ing firm­ly that one should have as many moth­ers as one can. “And my own Oth­er Daugh­ter,” she laughs, “How we will miss you.” A love com­posed most­ly of say­ing good­bye, these days. But bet­ter than nothing…

And so, after a cozy, dark, night­time flight, we are back! Grey skies, sprin­kling rain, yes, it’s home. All the cats milling around look­ing MUCH larg­er than when we left them in July (a com­bi­na­tion of the con­trast with the tiny sum­mer kit­tens and also the lack of exer­cise I’m sure they’ve expe­ri­enced, with no fam­i­ly to chase up and down the stairs of the house!). We unpacked quick­ly to get it over, I hate unpack­ing. Rev­elled in the Quixot­ic but use­ful machi­na­tions of our clean­ing lady, who likes to orga­nize kitchen pantry items by size, not cat­e­go­ry, so porci­ni mush­rooms rub shoul­ders with black beans and Nasi Goreng paste, because they’re all… the same height tins and jars. Same with our clothes: all the black things I own (and they are many) are stacked togeth­er: shirts, sweaters, leg­gings, trousers. Because… they’re black. No mat­ter, I’m thrilled to see every­thing in such per­fect order.

After unpack­ing and eat­ing a desul­to­ry lunch of lentils and tuna (my cup­board and fridge are BARE!), I suc­cumbed to a nap, Avery to a marathon bath, and John to who knows what finan­cial machi­na­tions keep him hap­py and awake. Then to the super­mar­ket in the spit­ty Lon­don rain for pro­vi­sions: moz­zarel­la, chori­zo, mush­rooms, pep­pers, red onions, sausages, and ROCK­ET! Prop­er ROCK­ET, with that beloved snap­py bite I have missed all sum­mer. Rock­et! I made piz­za dough, piz­za sauce, sliced and chopped, mar­i­nat­ed and roast­ed chick­en wings with a yogurt and pars­ley dip­ping sauce. We all assem­bled our piz­zas, they baked, we ate, and then… start­ed to fall apart. Every­one to bed ear­ly, dis­be­liev­ing, as always, that we have left one com­plete life behind to start up anoth­er. It will take all of a week or so for it to feel normal.

This adjust­ment will be com­pound­ed by the fact that tomor­row, we dri­ve Avery to Corn­wall to spend a week with her beloved and much-missed Emi­ly and fam­i­ly! John and I will spend one night and then head back to Lon­don to do… I know not what, on our own for a few days. Then every­one will come back for the start of school. And nor­mal life… resumes. Just for now, for this evening sur­round­ed by grate­ful, purring cats, the dish­wash­er hum­ming in the back­ground, every­one but we sound asleep: we’re home. Leav­ing behind anoth­er home coun­try dimin­ished by the sad death of Edward Kennedy, a true Demo­c­rat. We’ll try to help Avery under­stand that lega­cy, as com­plex as it was. It’s intrigu­ing how Eng­land is mourn­ing his loss, con­sid­er­ing the mixed-up rela­tion­ship the Eng­lish had with his Irish loy­al­ties. How lucky we are to live with both these cul­tures, and how dif­fi­cult it is to try to under­stand both. We’ll give it our all, as usu­al, and let you know.